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What’s Up Doc?: Louie Psihoyos Tops Our *New* Monthly Top 50 Most Anticipated Docs Guide
They often get quite a bit less attention than their fictional brethren, and it doesn’t help that many films fly under the radar while development and filming is underway. To chart this course with a little more precision, I’m launching IONCINEMA.com’s latest feature, What’s Up Doc?, our monthly Top 50 Most Anticipated films, a sort of hitlist and/or snapshot of the most alluring, the most promising documentary film projects from the established documentarian guard, the new crop of future voices or the fiction filmmakers who on occasion dip their toes in the form. Curated by me, Jordan M. Smith, you’ll find docu items that are in their beginning stages to being moments away from their film festival berth. Like any such list, we can expect film items to fluctuate in ranking, with the cut-off being publicly items — such recent examples include Laura Poitras’s white hot Edward Snowden project, Citizenfour, which recently made tidal waves at the New York Film Festival, or A.J. Schnack’s recently premiered Al Jazeera America aired election project, Midterms.
Near the top of our initial run is the the latest project from documentary legends Chris Hegedus and D.A. Pennebaker with Unlocking the Cage, which “documents Steve’s (renowned animal rights attorney Steven Wise) unprecedented challenge to break down the legal wall that separates animals from humans.” Despite being co-produced by the BBC and having received funding from the Tribeca Film Institute last year, the filmmaking couple took to Kickstarter back in May and successfully raised over $75,000 towards production costs (maybe you saw some of the ridiculously awesome rewards on offer for pitching in). On the brink of summer they still had a lengthy list of film shoots left, including scientific discussions around the world and on going New York court cases, so despite its high rank, it’s likely a candidate for a late 2015 release, best case scenario.
Much closer to release are Alex Gibney’s Mr. Dynamite: The Rise of James Brown, which premieres on HBO next Monday (October 27th), and An Open Secret, one of four films by Amy Berg stacked throughout this list. The latter marks Berg’s second film to call attention to sexual abuse (the first being the devastating Deliver Us From Evil), stating in it’s official synopsis that “Every year, thousands of children swarm Hollywood in search of fame, but what they often find under the surface is a deep and disturbing underbelly of manipulation and abuse.” Earlier this week Elle released the first clip from the film, which is slated to make its world premiere next month at DOC NYC along with a lengthy list of others, including Dan Rybicky & Aaron Wickenden’s Almost There, Althea by Rex Miller, and the Tom Roberts directed Every Last Child.
Looking down the pipeline once again, Kent Jones, director of the New York Film Festival, as well as the director of programming for the Film Society of Lincoln Center, is hard at work on his first solo doc since Val Lewton: The Man in the Shadows (both Lady by the Sea: The Statue of Liberty and A Letter to Elia were co-directed with Martin Scorsese). Taking its namesake from Francois Truffaut’s monumental 1966 book “Cinema According to Hitchcock”, Hitchcock/Truffaut, Jones seems to have rounded up just about every working auteur one can dream of to reflect on the text that made an impact on generations of filmmakers in its wake. The list includes names like Spielberg, Linklater, Fincher, W. Anderson, Assayas, Scorsese, Gray and on and on. Given cinema history subject and the pedigree involved, I might wager for a rare docu premiere at Cannes à la Jodorowsky’s Dune or Ain’t Misbehavin’.
P.S: For those attached to any of the docs mentioned below — please feel free to share any updates on the status of your projects. I can be reached at jordan [at] ioncinema dot com.
# |
Film Title |
Filmmaker(s) |
Producer(s) |
Status |
PMR |
1 |
Racing Extinction |
Louie Psihoyos |
Olivia Ahnemann & Fisher Stevens |
Post Production |
– |
2 |
Unlocking The Cage |
DA Pennebaker & Chris Hagedus |
DA Pennebaker & Chris Hagedus |
Filming |
– |
3 |
Crocodile Gennadiy |
Steve Hoover |
Danny Yourd |
Post Production |
– |
4 |
Hitchcock/Truffaut |
Kent Jones |
TBD |
Unknown |
– |
5 |
Western |
Bill Ross and Turner Ross |
TBD |
Post Production |
– |
6 |
An Open Secret |
Amy Berg |
TBD |
DOC NYC Preem |
– |
7 |
Mr. Dynamite: The Rise of James Brown |
Alex Gibney |
Mick Jagger, Peter Afterman, Blair Foster, Victoria Pearman |
HBO Preem 10/27 |
– |
8 |
Be Natural: The untold story of Alice Guy-Blaché |
Pamela Green and Jarik van Sluijs |
Robert Redford – exec producer |
Post Production |
– |
9 |
Untitled Bill Clinton Documentary |
Martin Scorsese |
Steve Bing |
Post Production |
– |
10 |
Unknown Wiseman Project |
Frederick Wiseman |
Frederick Wiseman |
Editing |
– |
11 |
Diamond, Silver and Gold |
Jason Kohn |
Jared I. Goldman, Amanda Branson Gill |
In Production |
– |
12 |
Untitled Frank Sinatra Portrait |
Alex Gibney |
Nancy Sinatra, Jeff Pollack |
Pre-Production |
– |
13 |
(T)ERROR |
Lyric Cabral & David Felix Sutcliffe |
TBD |
Editing |
– |
14 |
Beyond The Brick: A Lego Brickumentary |
Daniel Junge & Kief Davidson |
TBD |
Filming |
– |
15 |
The Settlers |
Shimon Dotan |
TBD |
Filming |
– |
16 |
Rose |
Ben Rivers |
TBD |
Unknown |
– |
17 |
Janis: Little Blue Girl |
Amy Berg |
TBD |
Filming |
– |
18 |
Beatles Touring Doc |
Ron Howard |
Nigel Sinclair |
Unknown |
– |
19 |
David Millar Project |
Finlay Pretsell |
Iain Smith, Sonja Henrici |
Filming |
– |
20 |
Driving with Selvi |
Elisa Paloschi |
TBD |
Post-Production |
– |
21 |
Ring Girls |
Amy Berg |
TBD |
Post Production |
– |
22 |
Mythical Creatures |
David Charles |
Lanette Philips |
Filming |
– |
23 |
Hello, I Have Cancer |
Kristina Goolsby, Ashley York |
Huy Truong |
Unknown |
– |
24 |
Southwest of Salem: The Story of the San Antonio Four |
Deborah Esquenazi |
TBD |
Post-Production |
– |
25 |
Catching the Sun (Chasing the Sun) |
Shalini Kantayya |
TBD |
Unknown |
– |
26 |
Mudflow |
Cynthia Wade and Sasha Friedlander |
TBD |
In Production |
– |
27 |
Speed Sisters |
Amber Fares |
Jessica Devaney |
Editing |
– |
28 |
Cocaine Prison |
Violeta Ayala |
TBD |
Unknown |
– |
29 |
The Murder and the Journalists |
Francisco Bello |
Rebecca Richman Cohen |
Unknown |
– |
30 |
Phantom Cowboys |
Annie P. Waldman & Daniel Carbone |
TBD |
In Production |
– |
31 |
Containment |
Robb Moss & Peter Galison |
TBD |
Editing |
– |
32 |
Bikes vs. Cars – We Are Many |
Fredrik Gertten |
TBD |
Unknown |
– |
33 |
Being George Clooney |
Paul Mariano |
Christine O’Malley, Rivkah Beth Medow |
In Production |
– |
34 |
3 1/2 Minutes |
Marc Silver |
TBD |
Post-Production |
– |
35 |
Trapped |
Dawn Porter |
TBD |
In Productiuon |
– |
36 |
The Babushkas of Chernobyl |
Holly Morris and Anne Bogart |
TBD |
In Production |
– |
37 |
The Return |
Kelly Duane de la Vega and Katie Galloway |
TBD |
Filming |
– |
38 |
Yula’s Dream |
Hanna Polak |
TBD |
Filming |
– |
39 |
Ask the Sexpert |
Vaishali Sinha |
TBD |
Unknown |
– |
40 |
Uncertain |
Anna Sandilands & Ewan McNicol |
TBD |
Post-Production |
– |
41 |
The Brainwashing of My Dad |
Jen Senko |
TBD |
Post-Production |
– |
42 |
Return to Timbuktu |
Michael Meredith |
Alex Gibney |
Unknown |
– |
43 |
The Arrivals |
Heidi Ewing |
TBD |
Unknown |
– |
44 |
A Flickering Truth |
Pietra Brettkelly |
TBD |
Editing |
– |
45 |
Down By Law |
George Amponsah |
TBD |
Editing |
– |
46 |
Out of Mind |
Kristi Jacobson |
TBD |
Unknown |
– |
47 |
The Blind Cinema Club |
Jennifer Redfearn |
TBD |
Unknown |
– |
48 |
This is America |
Amy Berg |
TBD |
Filming |
– |
49 |
O.P.D. |
Pete Nicks |
TBD |
Unknown |
– |
50 |
Like Ants for Sugar |
Shirley Abraham and Amit Madheshiya |
TBD |
Editing |
– |
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